


Cloudless Girl

by commanderdameron



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: (unspecified but pretty much inevitable), Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Reader-Insert, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 13:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commanderdameron/pseuds/commanderdameron
Summary: Your Latin American lit class becomes a bi-weekly effort to make Dr. Santiago Garcia’s eyes light up.
Relationships: Santiago "Pope" Garcia/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	Cloudless Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I talk about Pablo Neruda's [Poem 11](https://albalearning.com/audiolibros/neruda/poema11-sp-en.html) from his _Twenty Love Songs_ and his [Sonnet 44](http://spanishpoems.blogspot.com/2005/04/pablo-neruda-soneto-xliv.html), in enough detail that it's probably worth it to give them both a read.

Dr. Garcia walks into the classroom, and you think, _Oh, no_.

 _Oh, no_ because his hair is cut just right, and his pants are just a bit too tight, and you are _certain_ that you’ve picked up guys older than this on nights out. And then his eyes scan the classroom and meet yours for an instant. It doesn’t mean anything, you know it doesn’t, but your heart stutters anyway. _Oh, no_.

* * *

You try hard. You always try hard, but you try harder, just because on the second day of class, you manage to eke out something profound, and you see the way his eyes light up.

That is what your Latin American lit class becomes—a bi-weekly effort to make Dr. Garcia’s eyes light up. And you succeed, enough that after a month of this, he expects _profound_ from you and looks particularly pleased when you deliver.

But you don’t want to look like a teacher’s pet.

(Don’t want your classmates to think you’re a teacher’s pet, or don’t want Dr. Garcia to think you’re _trying_ to be? You’re not quite sure.)

No, you don’t want to look like a teacher’s pet, so you are strategic. Waiting before answering his questions, even when you are _bursting_ to speak. (You’re bursting a lot.)

A month in, he poses a question. It’s easy— _so_ fucking easy. _Basic reading comprehension_ easy. When no one immediately volunteers an answer – because why would you give him this, when anyone who did the reading should be able to speak up? – he says, “Let’s turn back to the text, then. Everyone, reread pages 49 and 50. I’ll wait.”

He does. He sits down at his desk and he waits.

You perform focus, looking over the pages that you don’t need to read to answer his _basic reading comprehension_ question.

When you look up, his eyes are on you. They say, _I know you know the answer_. They say, _I know you knew when I first asked_.

And you think, _Oh, no_.

* * *

You brave office hours a few times. Always with a sincere question, although those questions are dealt with within five minutes and you’re never in there for less than half an hour.

In those never less than half hours, you learn that Dr. Garcia clashes with the other professors in the literature department for expecting _him_ to cover all of the Latin American and Spanish language lit that students will read before graduating with their degree. You learn that he goes into the city once a month to jam at the Old Town School of Folk Music. You learn that he’ll sometimes come into work on Saturdays so that he can blast hard rock in his office without disrupting his colleagues’ work.

Something about it feels so damn easy.

A few Spanish expletives begin sneaking out of his mouth – never in class, only in his office – and the words flow comfortably off his tongue. They feel like the marker of someone who is at ease.

 _Oh, no_.

* * *

Right before spring break, you read Pablo Neruda’s _Veinte poemas de amor_. He lets the class pick the poems you’ll discuss, and when your classmate offers up _number eleven_ , Dr. Garcia replies quite matter-of-factly. “Why don’t you read it aloud to refresh our memories.”

But you don’t need to be reminded. You read that poem last night and it brought tears to your eyes because you feel like the girl in the poem. You _want_ to be the girl in the poem, and you know you should not want that. Not when you fell asleep longing for Dr. Garcia to see himself in the speaker while looking at you.

So you swallow hard, and you don’t bother to follow along.

You look around, taking in your classmates as they focus with rapt attention; most of them need to, not fluent enough in Spanish to follow otherwise.

Eyes land on Dr. Garcia’s and _just right then_ , his cracks show. Because his gaze is immediately on his own worn copy of the book.

 _Par qué tocarla ahora_ , Neruda asks. _Why touch her now?_

Maybe Dr. Garcia’s cracks show, but right there at your desk, you’re the one who shatters. The tangible possibility that this isn’t just _your_ longing shatters you.

 _Yes, please_ , you think.

* * *

For your midterm paper, you have to pick one of Neruda’s sonnets to analyze, since you never discussed any of them in class. But that poem – and Dr. Garcia’s clenched jaw as he concealed his gaze after you caught him staring – clings to you, and you’d be lying if you said it doesn’t influence your decision.

You comb through each and every sonnet before landing on _sonnet forty-four_ , which revolves around a complicated, not-quite love; _un incierto destino desdichado_.

 _A wretched, muddled fate_ to go with Dr. Garcia’s _muddy swirl of torments_.

When you turn it in before sitting down, he glances at the introduction and you _see_ him swallow sharply as your choice of poem hits.

He doesn’t look at you for the rest of class.

But when he hands it back a week later, you turn to the last page to read his overall feedback and he’s written _clara niña_ instead of your name.

* * *

The uncertainty sits in your gut for the second half of the semester, filling your days and then your dreams. Because you’re not sure whether you can bring yourself to push any further, not with that damn poem from class running through your head as a constant refrain.

Still. You sit in your desk, and you’re profound, and you try to tell yourself that it’s enough—even with the way Dr. Garcia’s fingers knot together each time you speak up.

Is there a point in pushing it beyond that when he literally called you _fleeting_?

You go into his office for the first time in a month, and you ask a sincere question, followed by nearly an hour of… something else.

And it’s somewhere in the middle of the something else that you whisper, “Why ‘clara niña’?”

Dr. Garcia’s jaw clenches, not really with anger, but with hurt. “Three weeks into the semester, I reread that poem and started trying to talk myself out of something.”

You’ve been _clara niña_ in his head for _that long_?

“Don’t talk yourself out of it.”

Before he can reply, someone a few offices down slams their door shut.

* * *

Last day of finals hits, and it takes every bit of your energy to agree to go out with your friends when they plead with you.

Dr. Garcia is there and it is immediately a lot more interesting.

It’s sporadic gazes across the room, and orbiting around one another like some magnet is pushing you apart or pulling you together. (Or _both_.) It’s you earnestly dancing with your friends but craving for him to join you. (Knowing he won’t.)

It’s you coming out of the bathroom to find him there, waiting for you. His eyes dark and his body agonizingly close.

“I didn’t talk myself out of it.”

You swallow hard and you almost want to cry from the catharsis of it all. “I’m glad.”

* * *

Santi takes you into his bed a month into the summer. His hands trembling, his stubble coarse against your cheeks, your neck, your thighs.

He calls you _clara niña_ while he’s inside you – exhaling the words like a prayer – and nothing about it is fleeting.


End file.
